JOSH POLLOCK

Josh Pollock is the founder and lead developer of Caldera Labs, creators of Caldera Forms, a drag and drop responsive form builder for WordPress. He is also a WordPress core contributor, author of two books about WordPress development and a member of The WPCrowd.

Josh will present on an Introduction to Block Development.

LEE DROZAK

Lee Drozak is a Digital Strategy who designs and develops WordPress websites for people who love their online business but haa-ate their websites.

She’s here for those who are tired of fitting into everyone else’s mold. Those who are rebelling against sleazy online marketing. Those who want a website that takes your customer on a journey and allows you to solve the problems that brought them to Google search.Her straightforward advice has been featured at WordCamps, Soar To Success Magazine, and Pittsburgh Biz TV Shows. She’s presented to organizations large and small to share her love for website creation and passion for making the process simple.And when she’s not teaching small business owners how to create effective and client attractive websites, you can find her exploring the outdoors, listening to the horse and buggies in her Amish town or enjoying a glass of wine.

To learn more about Lee Drozak and discover how a solid WordPress process can help you reign in your client projects. visit www.leedrozak.com.

Lee’s presentation is on Difficult Clients or Clients Who Become Not So Ideal.

BEN MEREDITH

Ben is the Senior Support Technician at WordImpress, the makers of Give, the most robust donation platform for WordPress. He also created Better Click To Tweet, the most popular WordPress Plugin for adding Click to Tweet boxes to WordPress posts and pages. A lifelong North Carolinian (with a 4-year break in Middle Tennessee just after college), Ben is also one of the organizers for WordCamp Raleigh, leading the team in 2017 and 2018. When not coding or solving code puzzles to support users, you’ll find him with a guitar in hand or perhaps playing a round of disc golf. He’d lobby for it being called just “golf” and making that other game “ball golf” or perhaps “expensive ball golf.”

Ben will talk to us about How To Get Better Support.

MAX IVEY AKA THE BLIND BLOGGER

Maxwell Ivey is a totally blind man who grew up in a family of carnival owners in Texas. He started going blind at age four, lost much of his vision by age 12, and was totally blind by the time he graduated from college. Still he attended traditional high school and college. He became involved in scouting and achieved the rank of Eagle Scout. He would participate in the family business helping with bookings and operating games until his dad’s death forced the closure of their small traveling show. He started helping people sell surplus amusement equipment online. He had to learn so much including how to hand code html, master social media network, recruiter clients, set fees, write copy, build an email list, record videos, and so much more. People told him how inspiring he was which lead to starting a second website the blind blogger where he shares the more personal aspects of being a blind entrepreneur. That lead to writing three books his latest about competing for and winning one of the amtrak writers in residence. He would use his prize to take a crazy solo trip to New York City during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. He wrote about that in his latest inspirational self-help book titled The Blind Blogger’s NYC Adventures, How You Can Make Your Dreams Come True. Along the way he became. Prolific guest on podcasts, radio shows, virtual summits, and other online media opportunities. This lead to helping friends do the same. Now days he is hiring out to help fellow authors, coaches, speakers, bloggers, and podcasters more exposure by booking them on podcasts and radio shows so they can share their stories, reach new audiences, and build their brands. He loves helping people and is a no excuses allowed life goals coach and motivational story teller as a speaker. He is currently planning to travel the world sharing his message of accomplishing goals by finding solutions instead of making excuse. He loves to sing and will probably sing during his talk. If you have questions for him, just ask. He believes it’s better to answer an awkward question than to have people guess.

Max will present on When You Don’t Have Your Own Audience, Borrow Someone Else’s.

ABBEY SAGER

Abbey Sager, 18, was born and raised in northern New Jersey and now resides in southwestern Pennsylvania. She currently goes to Southern New Hampshire University majoring in Nonprofit Management. Already putting these skills to use, Abbey also runs her own 501(c)3 non-profit – Diverse Gaming Coalition – which fights to end online harassment. Her interests include how people use their emotions, bullying and harassment, and how these two ideas correlate. She actively volunteers for organizations such as Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation, Peace First, and Youth Service America.

Abbey will present on How To Build Your Platform Around Compassion.

SAM JADALI

As a cybersecurity researcher and crypto activist, Sam’s dedication and passion in the cloud space has been alive and well before the term cloud was born. He has spent the last 20 years in the hosting industry and he founded Host Duplex 8 years ago. Since the launch of HD, Sam and his company have been not only managing WordPress sites but educating clients on security and performance to assist in their success. His clients include some of the most visited WordPress sites on the internet including MacRumors and AppShopper . He quickly realized that client education is vital for not only his success but for their success. With his depth of knowledge of plugin security and compliance regulations, he continually educates his clients on how to be preemptive with security while maintaining the performance they expect.

An avid Big 10 fan (Go Hawkeyes, sorry Panther fans), Sam escaped the Iowa cold and moved to Southern California 7 years ago. He currently resides in downtown San Diego and is currently learning the ropes of raising a new puppy.

Sam will present on GDPR Is Here. Does It Affect You and Are You Compliant?

RAY SIDNEY SMITH

Ray Sidney-Smith is a perennial Small Business evangelist, working tirelessly to help small businesses launch, grow, and succeed in the marketplace each and every day. Ray Sidney-Smith is the President of W3 Consulting, Inc., a consultancy providing small businesses throughout the United States with practical approaches to business development and management/operations using Web, mobile, social and digital technologies. We provide Social Media content production and support for Small Business. Ray also hosts our podcast, Web and BeyondCast, a weekly show focusing on Small Business marketing and management on the Web and beyond, available on Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spotify and more.

W3 Consulting has offices in Arlington, VA (outside Washington, DC), Pittsburgh, PA, and New York, NY.

As a Digital Business Strategist, Google Small Business Advisor, Evernote Certified Consultant, and Hootsuite Global Brand Ambassador, Ray is hired or invited by economic development authorities, chambers of commerce, small business development centers, convention and visitors associations, and small business advocacy & support organizations to speak to SMB audiences and conduct strategy sessions with small business owners on a small business management, Web, Mobile & Social Media marketing topics.

Ray is the author of SoLoMo Success: Social Media, Local and Mobile Marketing Small Business Strategy Explained (available through Amazon in Kindle and paperback) and co-author of Podcasting for Small Business (available through Amazon in Kindle and paperback).

His work has focused over the past 20 years in the Small Business start-up, management and marketing fields. As a serial entrepreneur bootstrapping his own business and real estate ventures, he has owned several businesses, most notably a real estate title, escrow, and settlement agency (and its subsidiary, a qualified intermediary (i.e., IRS Sec. 1031 / tax-deferred exchange) agency) across three states for a decade.

In his spare time, Ray has been organizing the two largest productivity Meetup TM groups in the United States (in DC and NYC) based on Getting Things Done by David Allen over the past nine years. Ray uses his education and passion for psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and time, task, team, and project management, in helping professionals with the personal productivity methodology and supporting them at different stages of productivity systems development. He hosts and facilitates the personal productivity podcasts, ProductivityCast, Productivity Book Group, and ProdPod, the podcast of productivity lessons in two minutes or less (now with over 3 million listens globally!).

Ray will be talking about WordPress and Google Analytics.

LAURA BYRNE CRISTIANO

Laura started her first WordPress site back in March 2006 when she and a friend and decided to start a website about a then little-known book called Twilight where fans could discuss the novel on a blog and forums. What started as a small site with maybe 30 visitors a week, rapidly grew into the most popular Twilight website on the Internet with millions of visitors each day from around the globe.

Laura was suddenly thrust into a media vortex that included set visits, a book deal, speaking engagements, and too many surreal experiences to count. This lead to Laura transitioning from a career in teaching to one in marketing as she hit the ground running with a whole new skill set including podcasting, video editing, SEO, social media management and content marketing.

Since then, she’s created/written for over twenty WordPress sites mostly in the areas of education and entertainment. Aside from her love of WordPress, Laura is also an Anglophile, avid traveler, theater lover, fantasy junkie, and occasional actor. She currently writes for Hypable.com and does freelance marketing and social media work.

Laura’s talk is about How to Win Friends and Influence People in a 280 Character Universe.

ALONSO INDACOCHEA

Alonso Indacochea is the CEO of 11 Online, a full service digital agency in Albuquerque, NM. At 11 Online, Alonso lives and breathes WordPress, where he and the team build, fix and maintain websites for their clients. He and his team recently launched Block Party, a Gutenberg block membership site.

Alonso’s session will be on The New WordPress Paradigm — How Gutenberg Will (Eventually) Empower WordPress End Users and Professionals.

NATHAN INGRAM

Nathan is the Host at iThemes Training where he teaches WordPress and freelance business development topics via live webinar.

He is also the creator of >ADVANCE Coaching, working with WordPress business owners individually and in groups to help them become more successful in their businesses.

Nathan has been a web business owner since 1995, and is based in Birmingham, Alabama where he is the lead organizer of WordCamp Birmingham.

You can learn more about Nathan at https://nathaningram.com.

Nathan’s session is What I Wish I’d Known About Freelancing.

JUAN PABLO GOMEZ

NYC based Web Designer. Built my first table-based site in 2004. Currently designing for FC Harlem, New York City FC. UX Design Mentor at Bloc.io.

Juan Pablo will be talking about CSS Grid and WordPress.

AMANDA GORMAN

Amanda Gorman helps nonprofits and wellness-based businesses build thriving online communities. As a Customer Success Coordinator at GiveWP she works diligently each day to assist nonprofits in growing their communities and receiving more donations online to make a bigger impact in the world. As an SEO consultant, she’s passionate about tending to the internet like a gardener would tend to their garden, so it can become a safe and fun place to connect again. Amanda uses her SEO superpowers to help her clients better understand their purpose, their audience, and how to better reach their people. Amanda is in love with her husband Casey, her nephew Jackson, and their dog Topanga whom all live together in Rochester, New York.

Amanda’s session is on 3 SEO Strategies for Building Connection With Your Online Community. 

ADAM W. WARNER

Adam W. Warner discovered WordPress in 2005 and has been working within the community ever since. To feed his entrepreneurial spirit, he founded several WordPress-focused businesses that provide education, plugins and consulting services for online business owners.

He is a true WordPress Evangelist in spirit and personality, and that happens to have been his job title when joining SiteLock.com. Today, he’s the Open Source Community Manager there, continuing to bring his experience and knowledge of the web, business, and security to many other communities.

Adam is also passionate about his family, robots, and of course Life, the Universe and Everything.

Adam will be giving our keynote, WordPress as a Catalyst for Any Passion: My Story, Your Story.

Kim White

While the www was just getting popular I learned to build websites to show off my growing family. In 1999 I made it my career and later returned to school to build up my skill set. I love WordPress and started the Lehigh Valley Meetup in 2014. Currently, I serve as a chapter leader for GDI Lehigh Valley.

Kim will be presenting Getting Started with WordPress.

PAT COSTA

Originally a native of Ohio, I graduated with an education degree from Bowling Green State University and moved to Virginia. I taught for a decade as a classroom educator and somewhere along the line picked up another degree in political science from Virginia Tech. As a teacher, I discovered WordPress as it is an easy platform to host my lessons. Using Yoast on my site allowed me to reach a much broader audience than just my students. I then began to teach myself basic coding skills and soon I was picking up clients and other teachers who wanted work done on their websites. I eventually applied and was accepted as a Support Engineer for Yoast.

At Yoast, I enjoy demystifying SEO and helping our customers resolve tricky technical support issues. In my off time, I watch Cleveland sports, participate in historical reenactments, and try to learn more about the people, cultures, and places that make up the world I live in.

Pat will be presenting Entry Level SEO with the Yoast Plugin.

JAIME EBERLEY

I am a 17 year veteran of the service provider industry. Starting in technical support with a local internet service provider, I moved on to pair Networks, Inc. in 2004. I have always had an interest in website security and in 2006 I began working with our Abuse Department. After many years I have progressed on to Security and Abuse Lead and oversee security vulnerabilities, customer account cleanups, malware injection identification, and account fraud and abuse.

Jaime will be presenting WordPress Best Practices for Maintaining a Secure Site.

TIFFANY BRIDGE

Tiffany has been building websites for over 20 years, teaching herself HTML from Webmonkey tutorials on Geocities, moving on through Blogger, Movable Type, WordPress, Drupal, WordPress again… Today she teaches small and medium-sized businesses how to get the most from their web presence, and larger businesses how to keep their digital assets organized and up-to-date.

Tiffany will be presenting Emergency First Aid for WordPress.

DANIEL SWAIN

Daniel is the founder of JDS WebDesign, a Digital Marketing Strategy Company that helps small to mid-size companies. JDS WebDesign builds, supports and markets WordPress websites. Daniel has been building websites for 16 + years, and working as a free lance designer for JDS WebDesign since August 2007.

In his spare time, Daniel loves hanging out with his family, playing a round of golf, listening to some jazz, writing blog material, and working on his podcast.

Daniel will be presenting How to Get Your 2nd Client.

BETHANY LANG

Bethany Lang has taken the long and winding road to project management and WordPress. After receiving her BFA in Theatre Management from The Theatre School at DePaul University, she began her career as a grant writer and fundraiser in Chicago for organizations like Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Chicago Children’s Museum. As the youngest person everywhere she worked, she was often called upon to do “the stuff with computers.”

In 2012, Bethany left fundraising to transition to join NeonCRM’s training and implementation team, helping nonprofit organizations get up and running with their new CRM. In her three years there, Bethany became the team’s first director, supervising its growth from two to five full-time staff, creating new training materials and seminars, and assisting hundreds of nonprofit organizations.

Bethany came to WordPress through her previous position as Project Manager and Web Developer at Cornershop Creative, where she managed a wide variety of nonprofit tech projects and built websites for progressive nonprofits. She loves WordPress because it’s flexible and has a tremendous open source community, but it’s still so easy to use for everyday editors.

When she’s actually away from her computer, Bethany enjoys exploring Pittsburgh’s booming craft beer scene, rooting for her beloved Pittsburgh Pirates, and hanging out with her two dogs, Mina and Pavel.

Bethany will be presenting How to PM WP.